Shattered Pixel Dungeon/Enchantments & Glyphs (2024)

Acquirement[]

Weapons and armor you found in the dungeon usually have a 10% chance to generate with a random enchantment and 15% chance to generate with a random glyph respectively. Unlike upgrades and curses, enchantments and glyphs are always visible even on an item that isn't identified. A glyph can be added to an armor by use of an Arcane Stylus, given that it is identified and not cursed. Stones of Enchantment and Scrolls of Enchantment can all add enchantments to weapons as well as add glyphs to armors.

Glyphs can be also applied to the broken seal and moved between different armors if the Runic Transference talent is active. No such thing is possible with enchantments.

Given that there are 4 common, 6 uncommon and 3 rare enchantments and glyphs respectively, you have a 12.5% chance for a specific common one, 6.66% chance to get a specific uncommon one and 3.33% chance to get a specific rare one.

Enchantment loss[]

Upgrading an item with a Scroll of Upgrade has a chance to remove any enchantment or glyph on said item (as seen in a table below), Curse Infusion always removes glyphs and enchantments. Other methods of item upgrading are completely safe.

Enchantments and glyphs can be boosted by the Ring of Arcana, enchantments also by Enraged Catalyst talent. This usually increases the proc chance of the enchantment/glyph, but it often has a secondary effect if the proc chance exceeds 100% or if the enchantment/glyph isn't chance based.

Glyphs[]

Common Glyphs[]

Obfuscation[]

This glyph obscures the wearer, making them more difficult to detect.

This glyph gives the player a chance to be next to an enemy without them noticing the Hero. Due to this glyph's nature, it pairs well with the Rogue, especially when the Silent Steps talent is active, allowing the player to not have to worry too much about confrontation, and, at high enough levels, allows to save up potions of invisibility and cloak charges.

This glyph has a gray color, slightly darker than glyph of stone.

Boosting this glyph further increases stealth of the wearer.

Swiftness[]

This glyph enhances the speed of the wearer whenever they aren't next to an enemy.

When the wearer is not within two tiles of any enemies, their movement speed is multiplied by 1.2+0.04×level. This makes it an effective tool for keeping enemies at range, but its limitation prevents it from allowing a player to kite by itself. Because of this, a way to break away from adjacent enemies is desirable, and this can be done in many different ways. Due to its nature, this glyph pairs particularly well with the ring of sharpshooting, crossbow, Spirit Bow, whip, and most offensive wands.

Boosting this glyph further increases speed of the wearer if there isn't an enemy nearby.

Viscosity[]

This glyph is able to store damage dealt to the wearer, dealing it to them slowly rather than all at once.

When taking physical damage, a fraction of it is not dealt immediately, but is instead stored as Deferred Damage. Every turn, the user takes 10% of the "stored" damage, rounded down, but never less than 1 until the stored damage reaches 0. Additional hits (and thus Viscosity procs) will add their respective amounts of deferred damage to the existing amount.

This glyph cannot reduce damage taken by itself, so without outside tools the best it can do is stall death (instead of preventing it). However, it can become an adept survival tool when paired with specific items. Healing items such as Potions of Healing and the Dew Vial can be used to bring the Hero's health to a place where the deferred damage won't eventually kill them. This, in fact, is the one of the most effective and applicable usage of the glyph: giving the Hero opportunities to heal when they otherwise wouldn't have them (in combat).

Something to note is that this pairs very well with the Timekeeper's Hourglass. Via Stasis, it is possible to directly reduce the overall amount of deferred damage taken by the Hero. Each full use of Stasis (2 charges) cuts the current amount of deferred damage by at least 10 damage, allowing the user to completely avoid taking deferred damage when the deferred total is 10 or less. With larger amounts of deferred damage, Stasis will always reduce the total by at least 50%, becoming more efficient the higher the initial total is. At very high deferred damage totals, it will approach 65% reductions. Because of these traits, Stasis is the most effective method to survive through very high amounts of deferred damage.

The Chalice of Blood, especially when highly leveled, can help alleviate the risk of death from deferred damage, most particularly when the total amount deferred is less than 20. At +10, the health regeneration completely cancels out the DOT effect when the total deferred is less than 20; however, it can struggle to keep up with higher amounts.

Boosting this glyph further increases portion of damage deferred. Once it reaches 100%, further bonus acts as damage reduction.

Potential[]

This glyph builds energy when struck, giving a small amount of charge to the wearer's wands.

Procs restore a charge to all of the Hero's wands. It has no effect for other armor wearing creatures.

Boosting this glyph when the proc chance is already 100% increases the number of restored charges.

Uncommon Glyphs[]

Brimstone[]

This glyph shields the wearer and their belongings from fire, completely nullifying its damage and negative effects.

The wearer and their belongings will be completely immune to the effects of the burning debuff.

This glyph can be powerful when combined with the wand of fireblast, as it removes the wand's tendency to be a danger to the Hero as well as its targets.

Boosting this enchantment grants the wearer 2 x boost chance to receive 1 shielding each turn when burning. The shielding is capped at 8 x boost and doesn't deplete over time as long as the target keeps burning.

Stone[]

This glyph surrounds the armor with heavy magical stone that makes dodging impossible, but blocks damage in proportion with evasion.

Hero evasion is set to 0 (making dodging impossible), but procs on every physical attack and provides damage reduction equal to 75% of the chance to dodge the incoming attack, had the wearer's evasion not been reduced to 0. This happens before armor damage reduction is applied.

Stone and Armor Augmentation[]

• Evasion augment yields the most consistency overall on armor of stone. In most cases, evasion augment yields the best worst case damage reduction (DR) with the tradeoff of having the worst best case DR.
• Defense augment generally has the best average performance, albeit with the catch that it is the least consistent; it generally has the best best-case damage reduction but the worst worse-case DR. In some cases involving high level armor, the worst case can mean taking more damage than usual when compared to not having the glyph at all.
• Having no augment generally yields a performance between the two augments in all aspects on average, though there are cases where it is ideal.

The more excess evasion one has, the better defense augment performs relative to other augments. With extremely high evasion (from a ring of evasion), all augments have the same worst-case damage reduction, causing defense augment to completely outclass the others thanks to its superior best-case damage reduction. With low evasion (such as from a cursed ring of evasion or being significantly under-leveled), however, defense augment can instead prove to be a liability.

Boosting this enchantment increases wearer's evasion when calculating the damage reduction.

Entanglement[]

This glyph grows earthen armor around the wearer to absorb damage, but this armor will break if the wearer moves.

When procced, bestows 5+2×level of Herbal Armor upon the wearer, absorbing a set amount of physical damage based on depth until it uses up all of its armor or the wearer moves. The proc rate is a static 25%; it does not scale with upgrades.Boosting this glyph when the proc chance is already 100% increases the total Herbal Armor provided.

Repulsion[]

This glyph rebounds force against attackers, sending them flying back.

Attackers have a ^level+1∕_level+5 chance to be thrown 2 spaces backwards away from the wearer using the same mechanics as a wand of blast wave.

This is an effective glyph for ranged-based builds due to its ability to consistently provide the wearer with breathing room from the many melee-centric mobs of the dungeon, and it can also pick up many chasm kills along the way. However, it can be a hindrance against enemies with ranged attacks, for these tend to be much more dangerous than their melee attacks.

Boosting this glyph when the proc chance is already 100% increases the knockback distance.

Camouflage[]

This glyph allows the wearer to blend into tall grass, granting them temporary invisibility.

When trampling tall grass, the wearer gains 3+level turns of Invisibility.

Boosting this glyph further increases the duration of Invisibility.

Flow[]

This glyph manipulates the flow of water around the wearer, making them much faster when moving through it.

The wearer's movement speed is increased by 2+0.25×level when standing on a water tile.

This, in contrast to swiftness, can be used to put enemies at range as long as there is water around; this makes it much more powerful, yet more situational, than swiftness.

This glyph pairs with everything Swiftness works with well, and it is particularly helpful when the Hero is using a wand of lightning due to both needing water to work at their maximum potential.

Potion of Storm Cloud (Exotic variant of Potion of Levitation) can also be used to maximize the speed increase.

Boosting this glyph further increases speed of the wearer if they are standing in the water.

Rare Glyphs[]

Glyphs in this category are very powerful and don't require any additional synergies to be highly beneficial. All of them scale with upgrades and become much more effective with them. They will almost always be able to put in work either way.

Affection[]

This powerful glyph manipulates the mind of attackers, charming them temporarily.

A successful proc will cause the attacker to be charmed for 10 turns, preventing them from attacking the wearer by any means. The one exception to this, however, is that an Evil Eye can still use its deathgaze if it is already charging up for it, though it will act as if it is blinded (moving a tile over will cause it to miss).

This glyph is a solid choice for classes that would rather not take damage (which is most of them), but it can be a hinderance for Berserkers, who need to be hit in order to build their rage.

Boosting this glyph when the proc chance is already 100% makes the Charm last longer.

Anti-magic[]

This powerful glyph allows armor to defend its wearer against magical attacks as well as physical ones. This magical defence is not affected by the armor's tier.

This glyph provides damage reduction which applies to all magic attacks instead of physical ones. This includes attacks of enemies like Dwarf Warlock or Evil Eye but also self damage from Wands and Scrolls.

Boosting this glyph further increases magic damage reduction.

Thorns[]

This powerful glyph harms attackers, causing them to slowly bleed based on the damage they deal.

Successful procs will inflict Bleeding upon the attacker. Something important to note is that the damage calculation for the initial Bleeding damage does not consider armor level, so a hit that does 0 damage to you will deal damage to the attacker in Bleeding. Which makes it one of the best glyphs to have on high level armor.

Boosting this glyph when the proc chance is already 100% further increases bleeding damage.

Enchantments[]

Common Enchantments[]

As of v0.7.2 enchantments have been adjusted to deal less direct damage and more utility or situational power. They are very effective on fast weapons due to their high proc rates, but the same trait makes them an asset to almost any weapon.

Chilling[]

Enemies struck with this enchantment are chilled, slowing their movement and attacks.

Each proc will inflict 3 turns of Chilling, reducing the target's general speed by 10% for each turn remaining of Chill (maxing at 50%). The chill duration stacks over multiple procs up to 6 turns of chilling on a given target.

This enchantment is very useful in general due to its ability to effectively make the user faster, and fast weapons can often manage to stack Chill repeatedly to make the target constantly slower.

Procs from this enchantment deal significant damage to Fire Elementals instead of applying Chill.

Boosting this glyph when the proc chance is already 100% increases chill duration applied on hit as well as maximum chill duration.

Shocking[]

Electricity arcs from a shocking weapon, dealing extra damage to all nearby enemies.

A successful proc will inflict 1/3 of the damage dealt by the weapon as bonus damage to all enemies (excluding the Hero and their allies, thankfully) within a 5x5 radius of it. It can spread from mob to mob as long as they are adjacent to each other.

Boosting this glyph when the proc chance is already 100% increases shocking damage.

Blazing[]

This enchantment causes flames to spit forth from a weapon, burning enemies and terrain alike.

Procs will inflict burning upon the target. If the target is already burning, then they will also take bonus damage in addition to having their burning duration reset to 8 turns.

This enchantment has an orange color.

Blazing has a boosted proc rate compared to other common enchants:

Boosting this enchantment when the proc chance is already 100% increases the bonus damage it deals to burning target.

Kinetic[]

When an enemy is killed with a kinetic weapon, any excess force is stored in the weapon and will be applied to the next successful attack.

When killing an enemy, any "overkill" damage is stored and applied on the next hit. For example, if you kill a rat that has 8 HP with an attack that deals 30 damage, 22 of the damage is stored. If the hit with the stored damage kills another enemy, only damage that would have been stored had there not been prior stored damage is stored. Stored damage is lost over time.

Kinetic always procs.

Boosting this enchantment increases conserved damage.

Uncommon Enchantments[]

Elastic[]

Elastic weapons have a chance to send enemies flying back short distances.

Successful procs will send the target flying back two spaces with standard Wand of Blast Wave logic.

Boosting this enchantment when the proc chance is already 100% increases knockback distance.

Unstable[]

This enchantment radiates chaotic energy, acting as a different enchantment with each hit.

Every hit attempts to proc a different enchantment, taken from a list that includes every single enchantment barring Projecting, with equal chances across the board. This means that it is just as likely to attempt to proc Shocking as it would Grim. Whether or not it actually procs said enchantment depends on that enchantment's individual proc chance (which can be found in their respective sections).

Unstable always applies conserved damage if applicable much like a kinetic weapon, but only conserves damage itself if it rolls Kinetic on the killing blow.

Blocking[]

Blocking weapons have a chance to briefly shield you after attacking with them.

This enchantment has (lvl + 2)/(lvl + 20) chance to proc on hit, giving the user (2 + weapon level) shielding. This is tracked as a separate buff from other forms of shielding and it has a different duration mechanic. Whereas normal shielding decays by 1 point each turn, the blocking shield stays constant until it expires after 5 turns. And because the blocking shield is a separate buff, it is the only source of shielding that can stack with other shielding.

Additional procs will reset the duration and shielding left.

Boosting this enchantment (e.g. with a Ring of Arcana) increases the proc chance. Proc chances above 100% will increase the amount of shielding.

Projecting[]

With this enchantment melee weapons will gain extra reach. Ranged weapons will be able to penetrate nearby walls.

The weapon gains +1 range if it is a melee weapon, and it can be thrown through walls within 4 tiles if it is a missile weapon.

Boosting this enchantment increases projecting range (rounded to the nearest whole number).

Blooming[]

Blooming weapons contain magic which will cause vegetation to sprout on or around those struck by them.

On proc, attempts to spawn tall grass at the enemy's position. If unable to do so, will then attempt to spawn the tall grass on a valid tile in a 3x3 area around the enemy.

This enchantment has a green color.

Lucky[]

See also: Ring of Wealth

When an enemy is killed with a lucky weapon, lucky will attempt to proc and spawn a Ring of Wealth reward.

Drops are created as if they were generated by a -5 Ring of Wealth (80% common, 20% uncommon) and are always consumable drops.

Boosting this enchantment when the proc chance is already 100% increases the level of the Ring of Wealth used for drop generation (ring lvl = (5 x boost) - 10).

Rare Enchantments[]

Grim[]

This powerful enchantment possesses the power to instantly execute an enemy. The effect is more likely to occur the weaker the enemy is.

Every hit has a (0.5 + 0.05 * level) * (missed HP∕max HP)2 chance to deal damage equal to the enemy's current HP, instantly slaying them unless they resist the enchant. The proc chance for the enchantment takes into account the enemy's HP after the weapon would have done its normal damage; if the enemy has 40/40 HP and the weapon would have dealt 38 HP, the enchant will consider the enemy to be at 2/40 HP instead of 40/40 HP for the purposes of proc rate. Because of this, high damage weapons are very effective at proccing Grim.

Unlike for most other enchantments, the proc chance of grim increases linearly with level and can eventually reach 100% for enemies with enough missing HP.

Bosses and minibosses are resistant to this enchantment's effect and will only lose 50% of remaining HP, Yog-Dzewa is immune. The Hero, however, doesn't have any resistance to it and will be killed instantly if they somehow get hit by a grim weapon and the enchantment procs (ring of elements or armor of antimagic don't help).

Boosting this enchantment has no effect beyond increasing proc chance.

Vampiric[]

This powerful enchantment leeches life force from enemies with each blow, funneling it back into the wearer.

Procs will restore 50% of the damage inflicted by the weapon back to the wielder. The proc chance does not increase by level, instead scaling by current HP (5% proc at 100% HP and 30% proc at 0% HP) modified by talent proc chance or the Ring of Arcana. In other words, the enchantment is more likely to heal a Hero at low HP.

Boosting this enchantment, through the use of the Ring of Arcana or talents, can increase proc chance and heal amount.

Corrupting[]

This powerful enchantment possesses the ability to turn enemies to your will. When an enemy is killed with this weapon, there is a chance they will become corrupted instead of dying.

Enemies killed by a corrupting weapon have a chance to be resurrected with the corrupted debuff, causing them to act as allies.

Boosting this enchantment when the proc chance is already 100% grants corrupted enemies 5 x (boost - 1) turns of Adrenaline.